a. Field of the Invention
The present invention is in the general class of electrical storage devices; more particularly, it is in the area of capacitors; still more particularly, it is in the area of capacitors having high surface area plates; most specifically, it is an electrical storage device (e.g. capacitor) which patterns at least one of its plates upon the high surface area material zeolite, so as to produce a device with high surface area plates.
b. Background of the Invention
Various attempts have been made to increase the surface area of the plates in a capacitor. For example, electrolytic capacitors have employed plates which are rolled like pastry, to increase the surface area of those plates. The present invention makes use of a class of materials, called “high surface area” materials which have an exceptionally large (relative to volume) surface area. An excellent example of this type of material is “zeolite”. Although there are many different forms of zeolite, most if not all are high surface-area materials.
Zeolites are regular crystalline structures which are essentially porous. Zeolites have a structure which is similar to that of a natural sponge or hardened coral. Internally, zeolites are rigid sponge-like structures with uniform but very small openings (e.g., 0.1 to 1.2 nanometers or 0.1 to 1.2×10−9 meters). It is this sponge-like structure of the zeolite which results in many internal passageways connecting the openings. Each passageway exposes additional surface area, thereby contributing to the large surface area of the zeolite, which makes it ideal for use in the present invention.
For example, one gram of a zeolite, approximately the size of a sugar cube, may have a total surface area of 1,000 square meters. At least a portion of this large surface area is used to support one or more plates of a capacitor, thereby providing a high surface area plate useful in providing high capacitance. (Note that while zeolite is used as the example of high surface area material throughout this application, it is so used only for illustrative purposes only, and it is to be understood that other high surface area materials could function in its place.